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Film review: Bachelorette (15)

 

Anthony Quinn
Thursday 15 August 2013 19:56 BST
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Kirsten Dunst, centre, in 'Bachelorette'
Kirsten Dunst, centre, in 'Bachelorette'

Eager to chow down a slice of the Bridesmaids cake, this wedding comedy regurgitates something hard, coarse and fantastically unpleasant.

Adapting her own play, writer-director Leslye Headland barely allows a scene to go by without a repulsive display of crudity. A riff about blowjobs between strangers on a plane gives an early warning.

Kirsten Dunst plays wedding organiser to her friend (Rebel Wilson) while secretly furious that she's been pipped to the wedding post. Wilson pays for it by being the target of nasty fat jokes.

Dunst is supported in her misery by two friends, a cokehead (Lizzy Caplan) and an airhead (Isla Fisher), who must arrange overnight repairs on a wedding dress they've ruined in a drunken moment.

Whereas Bridesmaids dug beneath the dirt to locate something truthful and funny about female friendship, this sprays around the filth in a rote, joyless fashion. It's not that I object to characters who are dislikeable: that can be interesting. But I do object to them as boring, shrill mouthpieces of sexual neurosis and social envy. RSVP a "no".

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